Fwd: PFF/OVaL Meeting Minutes: 11/25/11

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Robyn Mello

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Nov 25, 2012, 10:39:01 PM11/25/12
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Occupy Vacant Lots & Philly Food Forests Meeting
Sunday, November 25th, 2012
11am-5pm
1113 Frankford Avenue

At least 22 people showed up for this meeting between the hours of 11am & 5pm! If you were at the meeting & you don't feel like re-reading the minutes, search for your name for things you need to follow up on (here's to individual accountability in volunteer organizations). Thanks for braving the cold, sharing delicious food & drinks, bringing things to write in/with, offering so many beautiful ideas, & deciding to take action. Isn't it great when things work? If you weren't able to attend, read on for what's going on, & plug in!

Next Gatherings:
Candle & Lye-making Workshop, led by Steph
Next Sunday, December 2nd
11:30am
The Thrift Store Warehouse
1608 N 21st St (between Cecil B. Moore & Oxford)
Call James if you need help getting in: 585-489-9849
If you have any of these things, bring: small glasses or something small & usable for candle molds, beeswax, wood ash, notebook, pen, camera, & warm clothes (it's a warehouse space)

Grassroots Garden Consultation/Design Workshop, led by Robyn
Sunday, December 9th
2:00pm
Robyn's House
2070 E Susquehanna Ave
Call Robyn with questions: 215-571-9506
Bring: Notebook, pen, food & drink to share, & questions

General Meeting
Need feedback
Should we have it Sunday, December 16th or wait until Sunday, January 6th?
Where?

Mushroom Cultivation Workshop, led by Norm or Robyn
TBA (hopefully in December?)

Basic herbalism, salvemaking, tinctures, & infused oils, led by Robyn, Maritza, Steph, etc.?
TBA (Maybe December 16th?)

Seed-starting 101, led by Larry, Joe, & Robyn?
TBA (sometime in February 2013)

Action Alerts:
1. A City Councilman is proposing to use councilmanic prerogative to rather surreptitiously change the new zoning code to restrict community gardening & market farming (& many other uses) from certain commercially zoned properties, just after years of deliberation & public meetings were held to construct the zoning code that was just introduced. In the immediate, the adoption of this proposal would make gardening illegal at The Brewerytown Peace Park (24th & Bolton), & it could seriously impede the future of urban gardening in this city. 

There will be a Rules Committee Hearing on Tuesday, December 4th at 10am regarding this, & anyone interested should attend. It will be in Room 400, City Hall. If you want to testify at this meeting, you must get on the agenda ahead of time by calling the chair of the Rules Committee, Councilman Greenlee, 215-686-3446. Robyn (rojo...@gmail.com) will be testifying, & would like support. See the attached PDF from Amy Laura Cahn (ac...@pilcop.org) explaining this further.

2. A woman named Khenti is in danger of having her community garden space bulldozed at 36th & Spring Garden after growing there since 1998. She would like our help! If you're interested in helping her, especially if you live near there, call her at 215-805-3294. She has a petition which we passed around to sign, but she'll need more support, too. Also help to come up with win-win alternative solutions so that all parties are happy. If this is a Drexel purchase, we could work on connecting the Temple U Community Garden Club with interested students/professors at Drexel, to keep the space green & productive for the university.

Dusty (dusty...@alumni.augsburg.edu), Monica (moni...@icloud.com), & Lori (lorin...@gmail.com) are interested in following up on this.

3. Winter clean-ups of existing spaces where we've worked, even if we haven't been there in a while? When should we do this? Does anyone want to work on scheduling this?

Small Sub-Groups to Plug Into
So far, the list goes as follows:
1. Construction & Free-source Procurement: The people who want to build things in our garden spaces such as trellising, rainwater harvesting systems, sheds, compost bins, compost toilets, cob ovens, fire pits, raised beds, hoophouses with compost heating, mobile milk crate gardens, etc.; & the people who like to fish awesome items out of dumpsters for reuse in those building projects. 

Steve - miam...@hotmail.com (trellising at MEEP)
Marlon - marlo...@gmail.com (trellising at MEEP)
Maritza - laque...@gmail.com (trellising at MEEP)
Fred - akitt...@msn.com (rainwater harvesting systems)
Rob - edit...@yahoo.com (hoop houses)
Pat - patfri...@gmail.com (hoop houses)
Meenal - meenal...@gmail.com (resources)
James - bujee...@gmail.com (d-diving squad)
Sam - bujee...@gmail.com (d-diving squad)
Monica - moni...@icloud.com (follow up with Billy re. Revolution Recovery, Meenal will help re. Fern if necessary)

2. Outreach & Education: So far, this is anyone interested in any kind of neighborhood outreach, community meetings, 'zine making, recipe book compiling, workshops/ skillshares/ discussion groups, sign painting, etc.

Bri - bribir...@gmail.com (Moore interns, sign-making, door-to-door)
Lori - lorin...@gmail.com (kids' activities & sign-making)
Anne - ayo...@gmail.com (sign-making)
Robyn - rojo...@gmail.com (workshops, 'zines, cookbook)
Steph - stephani...@gmail.com (workshops & free backyard garden consultations)

3. Fundraising: Ideas raised were having fundraisers in the form of dinner parties/potlucks, dance parties, live music, raffling off a free backyard garden, teaming up with Slow Food Philly &/or GMO Free PA for a shared fundraiser using food harvested from our gardens, Kickstarter, Indygogo, selling 'zines & cookbooks, etc. This money will help us to buy the things we can't always get for free, like quality fruit trees & certain building materials. For large amounts of money raised/donated, maybe we can go through Vivek (vive...@gmail.com), the Occupy Philly Treasurer, The Community Health Collaborative, The Pedal Co-Op, or some other 501(c)(3).

WE NEED MORE HELP!

4. Internet, E-mail, & Social Media: This involves Facebook administration, photographing & uploading, e-mail listserv updating & responses, website updating & blogging, Twitter (if anyone wants to do this), & all other such cyber stuff.

Greg - amtr...@gmail.com (photos, etc.)
Pat -patfri...@gmail.com (set up GDocs through OVaL e-mail)
Marlon - marlo...@gmail.com (blogging)
Maritza - laque...@gmail.com (blogging)
Robyn - rojo...@gmail.com (admin expansion, blogging, photos)
Jenna - jenna...@gmail.com (photography?)

5. Organizational Structure & Documentation: This might be icky, but it's necessary if we want to be able to explain to newcomers what our principles are, where we've come from, what we do, what we want to do, what we do with our money, etc., & also if we ever decide we want to become a non-profit or legal entity or apply for funding, having this to reference or use will be super helpful.

Pat - patfri...@gmail.com (business experience)

6. Garden Point People: Added after the meeting. If you want to be a person or part of a small group dedicated to a specific garden (perhaps the one closest to you or one you still want to start?), for regular attendance, watering schedules, neighbor outreach, etc., this will be a super important & fun job, with no experience necessary (we'll help!), that will become crucial in February/March 2013.

GIS Mapping & Future Gardens
Meenal (meenal...@gmail.com) has a friend who works for Avencia/Azavea (http://www.azavea.com/) doing GIS Mapping, & he would like to help us with vacant lot info. We were thinking that we could use his expertise to map out which vacant lots are zoned residential vs. commercial vs. industrial, & of those which are owned by the city & which are privately owned, & of those which are most notoriously behind in taxes & other liens, for researching further attractive lots for gardens. Greg (amtr...@gmail.com) is also interested in a land inventory.

Anne (ayo...@gmail.com) will follow up with friend, Bilqis, in Baltimore who worked on GIS mapping with Baltimore Green Space for more info.

This ties in to things Paul (paul5...@gmail.com) was talking about, regarding making signs claiming adverse possession of seriously delinquent properties & cleaning them up as a statement for owners to either shape up or have their space taken over. This makes the demand for food production in Philly's hungriest communities a political statement, something that he believes should be a priority for urban ag.

Potential future garden on the corner of 4th & Winton (Maritza & Marlon's block). If interested in helping here, contact Maritza (laque...@gmail.com).

Alternative Currency/ Time Banking
Check out Time Banks USA
Do we want to work on "currency" for OVaL/PFF specifically, or work on a neighborhood currency or sector (i.e. Philly Food Producer) currency?
Does anyone want to start a sub-group for this? It's going to take a lot of time, so the more people working on it, the better. We wouldn't have to reinvent the wheel. Paul Glover has done a lot of work on this  (http://www.ithacahours.com/) & so has Fred K (http://www.hoursystem.net/). 

Soil Building
Needs to be the first priority on all new & existing sites. We need compost bins, a compost manager for each site, & outreach/education to neighbors around gardens to bring their compost.

Land Trusting/ Ownership
Many people have many different feelings about this, & it keeps coming up. 
Does anyone want to research the idea of land trusting, adverse possession, equitable development, conservatorship, etc.?
Contact Norris Square Neighborhood Project, perhaps? They seem so be doing something right to prevent the negative effects of gentrification.
One volunteer who couldn't attend the meeting e-mailed with this: "I think owning the land (a questionable idea in general) is not the direction PFF wants to go.  Europeans have been building and demolishing [in these spaces] for over 400 years, and probably there isn't any place that isn't contaminated with things like lead-based paint.  With ownership comes the possibility of liability.  And with liability eventually comes insurance.  It's a societal Catch-22 from which you can't escape once you've entered."


Chew on that & get back to us!

Love ya,
PFF + OVaL


--
****




Robyn


Edible Landscape Designer & Nature Educator

Founding Member




On Sun, Nov 25, 2012 at 10:35 PM, PFF <phillyfo...@gmail.com> wrote:
Occupy Vacant Lots & Philly Food Forests Meeting
Sunday, November 25th, 2012
11am-5pm
1113 Frankford Avenue

At least 22 people showed up for this meeting between the hours of 11am & 5pm! If you were at the meeting & you don't feel like re-reading the minutes, search for your name for things you need to follow up on (here's to individual accountability in volunteer organizations). Thanks for braving the cold, sharing delicious food & drinks, bringing things to write in/with, offering so many beautiful ideas, & deciding to take action. Isn't it great when things work? If you weren't able to attend, read on for what's going on, & plug in!

Next Gatherings:
Candle & Lye-making Workshop, led by Steph
Next Sunday, December 2nd
11:30am
The Thrift Store Warehouse
1608 N 21st St (between Cecil B. Moore & Oxford)
Call James if you need help getting in: 585-489-9849
If you have any of these things, bring: small glasses or something small & usable for candle molds, beeswax, wood ash, notebook, pen, camera, & warm clothes (it's a warehouse space)

Grassroots Garden Consultation/Design Workshop, led by Robyn
Sunday, December 9th
2:00pm
Robyn's House
2070 E Susquehanna Ave
Call Robyn with questions: 215-571-9506
Bring: Notebook, pen, food & drink to share, & questions

General Meeting
Need feedback
Should we have it Sunday, December 16th or wait until Sunday, January 6th?
Where?

Mushroom Cultivation Workshop, led by Norm or Robyn
TBA (hopefully in December?)

Basic herbalism, salvemaking, tinctures, & infused oils, led by Robyn, Maritza, Steph, etc.?
TBA (Maybe December 16th?)

Seed-starting 101, led by Larry, Joe, & Robyn?
TBA (sometime in February 2013)

Action Alerts:
1. A City Councilman is proposing to use councilmanic prerogative to rather surreptitiously change the new zoning code to restrict community gardening & market farming (& many other uses) from certain commercially zoned properties, just after years of deliberation & public meetings were held to construct the zoning code that was just introduced. In the immediate, the adoption of this proposal would make gardening illegal at The Brewerytown Peace Park (24th & Bolton), & it could seriously impede the future of urban gardening in this city. 

There will be a Rules Committee Hearing on Tuesday, December 4th at 10am regarding this, & anyone interested should attend. It will be in Room 400, City Hall. If you want to testify at this meeting, you must get on the agenda ahead of time by calling the chair of the Rules Committee, Councilman Greenlee, 215-686-3446. Robyn (rojo...@gmail.com) will be testifying, & would like support. See the attached PDF from Amy Laura Cahn (ac...@pilcop.org) explaining this further.

2. A woman named Khenti is in danger of having her community garden space bulldozed at 36th & Spring Garden after growing there since 1998. She would like our help! If you're interested in helping her, especially if you live near there, call her at 215-805-3294. She has a petition which we passed around to sign, but she'll need more support, too. Also help to come up with win-win alternative solutions so that all parties are happy. If this is a Drexel purchase, we could work on connecting the Temple U Community Garden Club with interested students/professors at Drexel, to keep the space green & productive for the university.

Dusty (dusty...@alumni.augsburg.edu), Monica (moni...@icloud.com), & Lori (lorin...@gmail.com) are interested in following up on this.

3. Winter clean-ups of existing spaces where we've worked, even if we haven't been there in a while? When should we do this? Does anyone want to work on scheduling this?

Small Sub-Groups to Plug Into
So far, the list goes as follows:
1. Construction & Free-source Procurement: The people who want to build things in our garden spaces such as trellising, rainwater harvesting systems, sheds, compost bins, compost toilets, cob ovens, fire pits, raised beds, hoophouses with compost heating, mobile milk crate gardens, etc.; & the people who like to fish awesome items out of dumpsters for reuse in those building projects. 

Steve - miam...@hotmail.com (trellising at MEEP)
Marlon - marlo...@gmail.com (trellising at MEEP)
Maritza - laque...@gmail.com (trellising at MEEP)
Fred - akitt...@msn.com (rainwater harvesting systems)
Rob - edit...@yahoo.com (hoop houses)
Pat - patfri...@gmail.com (hoop houses)
Meenal - meenal...@gmail.com (resources)
James - bujee...@gmail.com (d-diving squad)
Sam - bujee...@gmail.com (d-diving squad)
Monica - moni...@icloud.com (follow up with Billy re. Revolution Recovery, Meenal will help re. Fern if necessary)

2. Outreach & Education: So far, this is anyone interested in any kind of neighborhood outreach, community meetings, 'zine making, recipe book compiling, workshops/ skillshares/ discussion groups, sign painting, etc.

Bri - bribir...@gmail.com (Moore interns, sign-making, door-to-door)
Lori - lorin...@gmail.com (kids' activities & sign-making)
Anne - ayo...@gmail.com (sign-making)
Robyn - rojo...@gmail.com (workshops, 'zines, cookbook)
Steph - stephani...@gmail.com (workshops & free backyard garden consultations)

3. Fundraising: Ideas raised were having fundraisers in the form of dinner parties/potlucks, dance parties, live music, raffling off a free backyard garden, teaming up with Slow Food Philly &/or GMO Free PA for a shared fundraiser using food harvested from our gardens, Kickstarter, Indygogo, selling 'zines & cookbooks, etc. This money will help us to buy the things we can't always get for free, like quality fruit trees & certain building materials. For large amounts of money raised/donated, maybe we can go through Vivek (vive...@gmail.com), the Occupy Philly Treasurer, The Community Health Collaborative, The Pedal Co-Op, or some other 501(c)(3).

WE NEED MORE HELP!

4. Internet, E-mail, & Social Media: This involves Facebook administration, photographing & uploading, e-mail listserv updating & responses, website updating & blogging, Twitter (if anyone wants to do this), & all other such cyber stuff.

Greg - amtr...@gmail.com (photos, etc.)
Pat -patfri...@gmail.com (set up GDocs through OVaL e-mail)
Marlon - marlo...@gmail.com (blogging)
Maritza - laque...@gmail.com (blogging)
Robyn - rojo...@gmail.com (admin expansion, blogging, photos)
Jenna - jenna...@gmail.com (photography?)

5. Organizational Structure & Documentation: This might be icky, but it's necessary if we want to be able to explain to newcomers what our principles are, where we've come from, what we do, what we want to do, what we do with our money, etc., & also if we ever decide we want to become a non-profit or legal entity or apply for funding, having this to reference or use will be super helpful.

Pat - patfri...@gmail.com (business experience)

6. Garden Point People: Added after the meeting. If you want to be a person or part of a small group dedicated to a specific garden (perhaps the one closest to you or one you still want to start?), for regular attendance, watering schedules, neighbor outreach, etc., this will be a super important & fun job, with no experience necessary (we'll help!), that will become crucial in February/March 2013.

GIS Mapping & Future Gardens
Meenal (meenal...@gmail.com) has a friend who works for Avencia/Azavea (http://www.azavea.com/) doing GIS Mapping, & he would like to help us with vacant lot info. We were thinking that we could use his expertise to map out which vacant lots are zoned residential vs. commercial vs. industrial, & of those which are owned by the city & which are privately owned, & of those which are most notoriously behind in taxes & other liens, for researching further attractive lots for gardens. Greg (amtr...@gmail.com) is also interested in a land inventory.

Anne (ayo...@gmail.com) will follow up with friend, Bilqis, in Baltimore who worked on GIS mapping with Baltimore Green Space for more info.

This ties in to things Paul (paul5...@gmail.com) was talking about, regarding making signs claiming adverse possession of seriously delinquent properties & cleaning them up as a statement for owners to either shape up or have their space taken over. This makes the demand for food production in Philly's hungriest communities a political statement, something that he believes should be a priority for urban ag.

Potential future garden on the corner of 4th & Winton (Maritza & Marlon's block). If interested in helping here, contact Maritza (laque...@gmail.com).

Alternative Currency/ Time Banking
Check out Time Banks USA
Do we want to work on "currency" for OVaL/PFF specifically, or work on a neighborhood currency or sector (i.e. Philly Food Producer) currency?
Does anyone want to start a sub-group for this? It's going to take a lot of time, so the more people working on it, the better. We wouldn't have to reinvent the wheel. Paul Glover has done a lot of work on this  (http://www.ithacahours.com/) & so has Fred K (http://www.hoursystem.net/). 

Soil Building
Needs to be the first priority on all new & existing sites. We need compost bins, a compost manager for each site, & outreach/education to neighbors around gardens to bring their compost.

Land Trusting/ Ownership
Many people have many different feelings about this, & it keeps coming up. 
Does anyone want to research the idea of land trusting, adverse possession, equitable development, conservatorship, etc.?
Contact Norris Square Neighborhood Project, perhaps? They seem so be doing something right to prevent the negative effects of gentrification.
One volunteer who couldn't attend the meeting e-mailed with this: "I think owning the land (a questionable idea in general) is not the direction PFF wants to go.  Europeans have been building and demolishing [in these spaces] for over 400 years, and probably there isn't any place that isn't contaminated with things like lead-based paint.  With ownership comes the possibility of liability.  And with liability eventually comes insurance.  It's a societal Catch-22 from which you can't escape once you've entered."


Chew on that & get back to us!

Love ya,
PFF + OVaL


--
****



Zoning Amendments action alert GJLI 11 21 12.pdf
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